Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1979 - 23

eling. Second, the artifacts left by the inhabitants
were not rich in either quantity or quality. Pottery
fragments, for example, were sparse and generally
poorly made. This scarcity may be because a large
number of utensils and containers were made of
perishable materials such as wood or gourds - for
example, the rind of the calabaza fruit. Finally,
within all of the savanna communities sampled,
structure and artifact inventories do not suggest a
wide range of local statuses or access to wealth.
Except for the site of Aguada Chichal, which may
or may not overlap the Chakantun occupation
temporarally or sociopolitically, there were no
temple or palace complexes fpund in the savannas
or adjacent forests.

Living in the Petén savannas presents many
hazards. Above all other difficulties, water has
always been the major problem - both too much
and too little of it. For the dry season, the ancient
Maya ensured a perennial water supply by constructing reservoirs, following the example of
many of their contemporaries at nonsavanna sites.
But in the rainy season living quarters would have
been surrounded by seas of mud. This difficulty
may have led savanna settlers to raise the living
areas on low platforms or to create walkways of
stone or wood. Excavations indicate little emphasis
on substructure construction, however, and no
evidence for walkways has been uncovered. But
perhaps such devices were not needed if the
savannas were occupied only seasonally during the
dry season. The unpleasantness of the wet clay
soils would be avoided and the reservoirs could
provide water. The notable lack of structural
modifications through time, the scarcity of artifacts as well as the absence of architecture indicating centers of sociopolitical organization all
support the idea of temporary occupation.
But even the dry season is not without difficulties. There is practically no shade from the
tropical sun in the extremely hot savannas and
there is little air movement. The danger of fire
sweeping through the dried grasses probably
loomed as a tremendous threat to Maya communities. Today flash fires are common during
the dry season, but burning is often assisted and
turned to advantage by modern occupants who
feed their cattle on the succulent regrowth of
post-fire grasses. The threat of fires may have led
the Maya to avoid large open grasslands for settlement and may have encouraged more building
on savanna margins, particularly in the areas of
interfingering savanna and forest patches. The
stony haystack hills, zukches and forests may have
acted as natural firebreaks, providing protection

for any settlement.
What were the Maya doing in the savannas?
The initial hypothesis - suggested both by the
question of the savanna originating through poor
Maya land management and the traditional view
of Maya society as agricultural - assumes that the
savanna dwellers were farmers. But even today
the Central Petén savannas are considered inadequate for growing corn or beans, the presumed staple crops of the Maya. This is due to the
savanna's high acidity and low fertility coupled
with an unreliable water supply. Lime and commercial fertilizers are modern solutions to these
problems, but the annual water regimen still limits
agricultural practice in the region. Today savannas
either provide pasture for cattle or are planted
with citrus, pineapple or cashew. Although citrus
is the only definite non-Precolumbian crop, there
is no archaeological evidence for the cultivation of
either pineapples or cashew in the Maya Petén.
If aboriginal savanna dwellers were farmers,
the location of structural remains in the low grass
flatlands suggests that the adjacent upland soils
were cultivated. These upland soils were more
fertile and better drained, even though they were
prone to erosion. But although some structures
have been found in upland forests, construction
was not extensive, and these upland slopes may
have been held aside for farming. The likelihood
of such an adaptation is suggested by the contrast
between savanna settlement patterns and settlement patterns in the forest area of northern
Petén, where populations made a conscious effort
to locate residences on more extensive, welldrained upland soils. Another alternative explanation for savanna settlement is that foodstuffs other than the traditional corn and beans,
better suited to the acidic savanna soils and
fluctuating moisture content, may have been
raised or exploited.
Yet the agricultural orientation for savanna
communities is supported by circumstantial evidence at best. Perhaps a variety of other specialized activities were carried out seasonally or
jointly with farming. Hunting, for example, must
have been an attractive and rewarding pursuit in
the savanna region. No doubt it became more and
more important to the Maya civilization as a whole
as forest habitats elsewhere were increasingly replaced by plazas, temples and agricultural fields.
Today there is an abundance of small and large
game species in the Petén savannas, including
deer (Odocoilens truei, Maxama americana ), rabbit
(Sylvilagus sp.), agouti (Dasyprocta sp.), paca
(Coelogenyspaca), peccary (Dicotyiestajacu, Tayassu
pecari), pisóte (Coati mundi), puma (Felis concolor),
and turkey (Meleagris sp.). Deer and other game
are attracted to the ashes and newly sprouting

1979
November/December

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1979

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1979